


Ripe for Harvest.

by LittleMewLugia (Lugianna)



Series: Oneshots and Snippets [5]
Category: Transformers (Bay Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-25
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2019-07-17 12:09:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16095377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lugianna/pseuds/LittleMewLugia
Summary: What if Sam's contact with the AllSpark had given him a vastly expanded life-span? What if Sam lived to see humans abandon Earth when it became uninhabitable?





	Ripe for Harvest.

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of two stories from bunnies offered to me by ReflectionsOfReality (on FanFictionDOTnet) that share very similar plots, but are significantly different.

Ripe for Harvest.

Rating: Teen and up for safety.

Continuity: 07/09 Movieverse.

Disclaimer: Transformers is and remains the property of Hasbro and Dreamworks/Paramount, no matter how much I wish otherwise… :)

 

Ripe for Harvest.

 

Several Million Years From Today.

 

Sam stood on the surface of a planet that had been deserted by its dominant species. What little life remained was doomed in a few months anyway, when the Solar System's Sun swelled into a red giant before cooling down in a few thousand years to become a white dwarf. He knew the fleeing humans had taken examples of all the species they felt worth saving with them, and likely as not a few they had not planned on keeping around, such as flies, fleas, and parasitic worms.

He appeared to be in his mid-twenties, in the prime of his life, and this was the last time he would gaze upon his world. He was, however, many millions of years old, still human, but he had no idea when he would die. It might be something that would never happen, for the AllSpark energy that had fled to his body during the Mission City battle was constantly repairing and renewing the tissues of his body, and stopping the ageing process in its tracks.

Although she was long dust, Sam could still remember his first wife, Mikaela, and all those who had followed. None of them, and none of their offspring, had been granted his extended lifespan, and after a while he began to avoid emotional entanglements with his own kind, because watching them age and die became too painful. For the same reason he did not keep in contact with any of his descendants, whom he was sure must now number in the hundreds. Most of them, for their own reasons, had not reached out to him, either, save a few, and those who did, he never answered.

 

He looked up at the large yellow form beside him, the Autobot scout Bumblebee. He was, in the units his race measured time in, like Sam, an adult at the peak of his life, a little more sedate than when Sam had first met him, but still otherwise the same friend Sam had first got to know. Along with the other Autobots, he had stayed Sam's friend when Sam shunned his own kind to save himself emotional pain when they died.

"Sam, are you sure you want to do this?" Bumblebee said, and Sam realised that Bumblebee had taken his lapse into silence as second thoughts and hesitation. He shook his head.

"Yes, Bee, I'm sure. You know what Starscream told us, there are lives riding on this. This planet is dying, what's left of the life on it will be dead soon, the Sun has already begun to swell. In a few more months, it'll be uninhabitable." Sam wiped away the sweat on his neck.

Egypt had always been hot when his age could still be counted in double figures; now, with the Sun having begun the process that would soon engulf the planet, it was almost unbearable. He looked back up at the half-demolished pyramid, with the Sun Harvester still half-exposed.

After the events surrounding the resurrection of Megatron and the revelation of the existence of the Fallen, the world had, at first, wanted to break it apart. Then somebody had decided that as there was no way of reactivating it with the Matrix gone, it would make an impressive tourist attraction, and the rest of the world agreed. With the aid of the Autobots, they had repaired it, and constructed a dummy Matrix, so people could go up and look around it, and then have their photo taken with it, holding the dummy Matrix as if they were about to activate the Harvester.

Sometimes, although human himself, Sam had found other humans incomprehensible.

 

He began to climb up the stairway built over the slope of the pyramid to get to the top, recalling the words of the Dynasty of Primes so long ago.

"The Matrix cannot be found. It must be earned."

He hoped that in his life he had done enough to earn it again, because lives were dependant upon it.

 

Reaching the top, he found the compartment where the Matrix was supposed to go, and the shrivelled scrap of twisted material that had been put in a clear box, on display, all that was left of the Matrix. He unslung the laser scalpel he had 'borrowed' from Ratchet before coming here, and sliced the side off the box, seizing the lump of destroyed Matrix from its pedestal. He closed his hands over it, thought hard about what he wished to do and why, the lives that would benefit from his plans.

He felt the lump shift in his hand, realised that his actions were valid, that his plans had been accepted by the Dynasty. Opening his eyes, he saw he was holding the Matrix as it had been, a beautiful, alien fusion of mineral and metal. He took a deep breath. This was it. This was crunch time. This was the last time he would have a chance to bottle out.

 

He looked out again, over the almost-deserted landscape, the bulk of the Autobot vessel, the _Ark_ , dominating the land around. Sam smiled at the irony of that name, for the vessel had just spent the better part of the last hundred years living up to that name, ferrying as much of the life the humans had left behind as was possible to another world, one without humans in it, where it was hoped the various Terran species could flourish and grow. Now it waited for only two more refugees from the dying planet to board it, and those two were himself and Bumblebee.

Crouching, Sam activated the slot at the centre of the machine and inserted the Matrix. As the slot closed up without even a seam to show where it had been, Sam looked up and spread his arms, as if to embrace the doomed red orb in the sky.

"From your death, you bring life," he said. "Lightbringer, life-bringing Sun, your inevitable death will occur a little faster this way, but your energy will not be wasted." Although there was nobody to see him except Bee, he suddenly felt a little foolish, and he dropped his arms. He took a final look as the Harvester began to hum and glow, and then suddenly realised that moving might be a good idea.

Scrambling back down the stairs, half on his feet and half on his bottom, Sam ran over to Bumblebee, who had already folded down into his antigrav-car alt mode.

"Come on, Bee, let's get back to the _Ark_ , shall we?" Sam asked.

Bumblebee lifted a door to allow Sam entry, closed it once he was in, and sped off. Sam looked out of his window as they headed for the _Ark_. Behind them, the pyramid's crown was obscured by a white corona as the Harvester prepared to unleash it's power upon the aged Sun.

Bumblebee didn't bother slowing or converting, shooting up the ramp which immediately closed behind them, for the Autobots personally thought this idea left so little room for error that they should get things done as fast as possible in case there was any delay on their side. As Bee came to a halt, Sam could hear nothing but the roar of the _Ark's_ rockets as they propelled the Autobot ship into the sky. 

 

Sam climbed out of Bee, and down a huge corridor until he got to a place where Bee could lift him up to the window.

They stood there, watching, and for a long while, they could see nothing different, as the _Ark_ climbed away from the Earth and moved out into the solar system. Then, a white lance of light leaped up from the surface of the planet and arrowed across space. It struck the red Sun, which shone brighter for an instant before the whole star began to darken as the white beam grew thicker and stronger.

Sam knew that even now the Harvester had opened a space bridge to the almost-empty energon tanks of the ship the Prime Dynasty had arrived on, and the Sun's energy was now filling those tanks, having been first converted to the vital energon the hatchlings in the ship needed for survival. As if his thought had been a cue, the ship's intercom system crackled to life.

"Sam, I thought you should know," came Ratchet's voice over the intercom system. "We've just had an incoming communication from Starscream. The hatchlings are strengthening, they should soon be able to come out of their pods. It worked, Sam, the hatchlings will all live!"

"Thanks, Ratchet," Sam said, then looked out once again, for the last time, at the now-invisible solar system he had once called home, as the Sun continued to darken.

 

His tears of sadness for the necessity of that final sacrifice mixed with those of joy for the lives that sacrifice had secured.


End file.
